subject: The Social Aspect Of Social Media [print this page] Many people nowadays use social media incorrectly when it comes to marketing. Obviously sites like Facebook or my space are pure gold if you want to sell things on them, but you have to be very careful and cautious when it comes to the intensity of your promotional efforts and the way you do it.
Those sites are made for people to connect and interact and not for marketers to use them as sales tools. We will talk about a couple aspects of social media and marketing in this article.
Don't abuse it.
It is a surely important for people that use social media to feel that they get exactly what they come for. Just think about yourself for a minute.
When you go on You Tube, you are not planning on watching commercials, unless you're a marketer, right?
Instead you want to watch something that will entertain or educate you, or maybe something that your friends have made and put up for people to watch.
If you go on MySpace you don't expect one of your friends to suddenly start selling you something, just like you wouldn't expect that to happen in the real world.
Whatever your marketing efforts make sure that you don't overdo it and never market too hard.
This kind of brings us to our next point which is looking at a social media website as if it was not a site with a whole bunch of strangers, but a place where your friends hang out.
Would you like your friend to suddenly try to involve you in something you wouldn't want to be involved in such as a membership site or an online course?
If you wouldn't and you told them so, how would you expect them to react? Would you want them to keep pushing you and try using other techniques to get you to buy? Or would you want them to accept your decision and just leave you alone and never bring up the topic again?
What I am trying to convey here is that if you should treat a social media website like you would treat your friend, you will be much better off when you do your marketing.
Social media marketing is a great thing and you should definitely use it, but do so with caution and care because it will turn its back on you if you don't.
Remember that just like in the real world, people on social media sites like controversy and if you are able to create something funny or contrversial, people will talk about it naturally, without your participation, and when that happens you're going to start seeing some serious benefits coming at you.
